I'd been trying to work up sufficient outrage to do a post on the fiasco that is the recent plebiscite on the Canadian Wheat Board. Now I don't have to. A columnist at the Regina Leader-Post hits all the high points in one article and concludes:
Whatever one thinks about the Canadian Wheat Board, the tactics employed by the Conservative government during its year-long battle with the CWB are reprehensible, undemocratic and possibly illegal.All Canadians should be concerned about the depths to which the Conservatives will sink in order to sink the Canadian Wheat Board.
All Canadians should be concerned that when Harper and his minions know full well that their policies don't have the support of the majority of Canadians, they'll fix the game if they can get away with it.
Now watch what happens on the subject of electoral reform.
The song is Walkin' Blues. The bonus is that this clip with Eric Clapton includes Alberta.
Paul Butterfield did a slightly more intense version. If you had your volume way up for that last one, be ready to dial it back a bit.
In reaction to a certain blogger's rumour-mongering (among other things), there's a new hit-site up. And right smack in the middle of the charges against said blogger is — wait for it — an unsourced, unsubstantiated rumour. Morons.
And while I can appreciate Erik's outrage, I see a problem here, too.
G!D, I hate anonymous bloggers!
I'm gonna go play with the dog for a while. He makes more sense than most people.
From what Arundhati Roy has to say, it’s like the upper classes of India are in effect conducting a hostile occupation of everybody else. I’ve heard her and others talk very bitterly about the problems in India, and talk about the resistance movements needed, but this interview goes beyond that. It’s almost fatalistic. She seems resigned to the prospect of rebellion, pogroms, police massacres, India spiralling down into chaos. I find it quite frightening:
Unlike industrializing Western countries, which had colonies from which to plunder resources and generate slave labor to feed this process, we have to colonize ourselves, our own nether parts. We’ve begun to eat our own limbs. The greed that is being generated (and marketed as a value interchangeable with nationalism) can only be sated by grabbing land, water and resources from the vulnerable. What we’re witnessing is the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in independent India — the secession of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country.So it’s outright war, and people on both sides are choosing their weapons.
The government and the corporations reach for structural adjustment, the World Bank, the ADB, FDI, friendly court orders, friendly policy makers, help from the ‘friendly’ corporate media and a police force that will ram all this down people’s throats. Those who want to resist this process have, until now, reached for dharnas, hunger strikes, satyagraha, the courts and what they thought was friendly media. But now more and more are reaching for guns. Will the violence grow? If the ‘growth rate’ and the Sensex are going to be the only barometers the government uses to measure progress and the well-being of people, then of course it will. How do I read the signs? It isn’t hard to read sky-writing. What it says up there, in big letters, is this: the shit has hit the fan, folks.. . .
There was a time when mass movements looked to the courts for justice. The courts have rained down a series of judgments that are so unjust, so insulting to the poor in the language they use, they take your breath away . . . The minute armed struggle becomes a strategy, your whole world shrinks and the colors fade to black and white. But when people decide to take that step because every other option has ended in despair, should we condemn them?
. . .
While our economists number-crunch and boast about the growth rate, a million people — human scavengers — earn their living carrying several kilos of other people’s shit on their heads every day. And if they didn’t carry shit on their heads they would starve to death. Some fucking superpower this.
I've got a lot of respect for Arundhati Roy . . . she doesn't seem to be a natural activist, if such a thing there is. I think she'd still rather be writing fiction, and has indicated that she felt far more natural doing that than writing politically. And it's not like she didn't have a career in fiction; The God of Small Things won the Booker! And yet she's basically abandoned that for activism, I guess because she thought it needed to be done. In a way one loss I feel keenly from all the destruction the Indian upper classes are wreaking is the loss of the books Roy might have written if their vicious ruination hadn't called her away from her writing.
But this interview scares me. It seems there are far higher prices being paid, and far higher prices yet to be paid.
And I'm not going to snerk. Not. Not going to snerk.
I'm just going to report the news in a calm and dignified manner:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is likely to face questions about the allegedly mediocre status of U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald when he arrives today for a scheduled round table discussion and press conference.Gonzales is supposed to be at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse to discuss the "Project Safe Childhood" campaign designed to protect kids from online predators. But he's likely to be asked to field inquiries about Fitzgerald being ranked as undistinguished on a chart sent to the White House from the Justice Department in 2005, as well as the controversial fall firings of a group of U.S. attorneys.
Gonzales is to appear for a round table discussion of the project with Fitzgerald and Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
The mediocre rating has been the subject of much joking among prosecutors, federal agents, defense lawyers and the press in the city, and especially at the building where Fitzgerald has earned accolades for sweeping public corruption investigations.
Fitzgerald finally spoke out about the situation last week as his office was announcing yet another indictment against a one-time City Hall heavyweight.
After discussing the new charges against Al Sanchez, a former top aide to Mayor Richard Daley, Fitzgerald said he simply goes to work everyday concerned about doing his job. When he thinks about the rating, he said, it's only because a friend is teasing him about it again.
If you don't want to register to read the full report, go instead to firedoglake, where I first read the news (and you can just imagine the hilarity that has ensued over there).
Updates on those interesting White House emails that have been going through unauthorized channels:
CREW have been pressing this case for over a week now. Yesterday, House Oversight Committee chair Henry Waxman made his first move -- writing to both the Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign ...
... to retain copies of all e-mails sent or received by White House officials using e-mail accounts under their control, raising the political stakes in the congressional inquiry into U.S. attorneys' firings.Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said his broadly written request was based on evidence that White House officials -- particularly aides to top political adviser Karl Rove -- have used their politically related e-mail accounts to hide the conduct of official business regarding the prosecutor firings and other matters being investigated by Congress.
"The e-mails of White House officials maintained on RNC e-mail accounts may be relevant to multiple congressional investigations," Waxman wrote to the group's chairman, Mike Duncan, adding that as "governmental records" they are subject to preservation requirements and "eventual public disclosure."
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with my Delete key.
... but that didn't help. Full moon isn't till next Monday.
I'm goin' out to the garden to dig worms. I am seriously fed up.
And you'll all be really sorry, too. Only after I'm gone will you realize how sorry you are. But it'll be too late then, won't it.
Now that we're all through spanking Jason Cherniak — are we all through spanking him? — let's take another look at the issue.
First of all, to address the controversy in Quebec, when Marcel Blanchet made a last minute change to the rules to require devout Muslim women to lift their veils, he didn't do it because he was concerned about a conspiracy on the part of those women to commit fraud. Here's why he did it.
But Blanchet reversed his earlier decision Friday, saying it was necessary to avoid disruptions when residents go to the polls.“Relevant articles to electoral laws were modified to add the following: any person showing up at a polling station must be uncovered to exercise the right to vote,” he said.
Blanchet had to get two bodyguards after the Quebec elections office received threatening phone calls and e-mails following his initial decision to allow niqabs. He said some residents had threatened to protest Monday’s vote by showing up at polling stations wearing masks.
Now does anyone doubt that one of the effects of this ruling will be to disenfranchise some Muslim women?
I'm certain that it wouldn't be difficult to find isolated examples of voter fraud in Canadian elections but can anyone point to an election in living memory whose outcome was actually determined by voter fraud?
If you look south of the border you'll find that accusations of widespread voter fraud are generally cover for attempts at voter suppression. As skdadl is fond of pointing out, democracy is about more than elections and voting, but voting is a vital part of the process and anything that makes it more difficult for people to vote undermines the principle of democracy. Anything that raises the barriers to entry into the process should be viewed with caution and scepticism. That's why the uproar over Cherniak's suggestion that the Liberals support Bill C-31 based on a mere rumour. It would be an awfully cavalier approach to an extremely serious and fundamental issue.
Let's remember that problems with a voters' list don't necessarily translate into fraudulent votes. The fact that Daffy Duck ends up on a voter list doesn't necessarily mean that Daffy will be able to waddle into a poll and cast a ballot. And if there has been an increase in voting list problems since we abandoned enumeration in favour of the permanent voter registry, maybe that's the decision that should be revisited.
If Liberals and Conservatives have approached Bill C-31 with the casual attitude displayed by Cherniak then the uproar of the last few days is more than warranted. If our elected representatives are going ahead with legislation that will make it more difficult for those who are already marginalized to participate in the democratic process, and if they're doing it without a lot more care and study than seems evident right now, then they may be about to do serious damage to democracy itself in this country.
Jason Cherniak has a post up in which he discusses doing actual research and concludes that the rumour he originally peddled now seems implausible and that he was wrong to repeat it. So noted. Credit him for that much.
Somehow this becomes proof that conclusions about policy he reached based on that rumour are still valid, but we'll leave that for another day.
Cherniak speaks!
Let's say, for argument's sake, that the ten or so NDP bloggers who are upset with me for mentioning the Trinity-Spadina rumour really believe that I have evil intent.
Sorry, but I would not have posted this if I had not heard it from credible people.
The story is not that it happened (because I don't know whether it happened), but that reliable people believe it.
If you don't want to believe that this is a real rumour, that is your choice. However, if you have any faith in my honesty ...
For the record, I never expected this sort of reaction.
A tip of the hat to Getting It Right for picking up on an angle I'd missed in Jason Cherniak's post of yesterday. Cherniak actually claims that Liberals supported — "fought for" actually — changes to our electoral system based on nothing more than unsubstantiated rumour.
Congratulations, Jason. You've single-handedly made the Liberal party look like a bunch of idiots. I'm sure Stephane Dion will be pleased that the blogger who served as his Blog Campaign Co-Chair and is otherwise so heavily involved in the party has revealed that Liberals support policies based on nothing more than idle gossip.
Natural Governing Party, indeed.
It's been 14 months since the last federal election and tonight is the first I've heard of this rather explosive accusation:
The rumour around TO (Let me be very clear; I am not suggesting that the rumour is true. I am only stating that it is out there.) is that Olivia Chow won because NDP supporters from across the city voted early and often at different polling stations in Trinity-Spadina.
Now let's revisit the opening of Jason's post, shall we?
Let's face it. People cheat in politics.
For some reason, I have the hardest time writing to stories I’ve been reading about in greatest depth. Why do we think that is? The Libby trial liveblogging left me next to speechless. And now the shocks and aftershocks of the U.S. federal prosecutors’ purge are having the same effect.
Not that I’m complaining, mind. If we’re now on Gonzales-watch, and we seem to be, then I’m happy to be drowning in document dumps from the U.S. Department of Justice (with occasional tasty copies of emails from the White House), since the DoJ met its match and then some last Monday night in the form of Josh Marshall and his readers at Talking Points Memo / TPMuckraker.
One of the most telling moments of last week’s drama slipped out in a White House press briefing on Wednesday, by which time everyone knew what the hive mind at TPM were accomplishing with the document dump and much else. Confronted with the history of his own and other administration cheerleaders’ positions on the limits of executive privilege, press secretary Tony Snow made the mistake of suddenly spitting out something sincere. “Is it making its way through the left-wing blogs?” snerked Tony.
Well, yes, Tony; it is. A lot of things are making their way through the left-wing blogs right now, and thanks for the notice. But you’re not bitter, are you, Tony?
The story continues to tumble out in rolling threads on TPM/TPMuckraker and the other American blogs that have the critical mass of informed volunteer commenters to make news or to take the news apart. In spurts the msm will skim off the latest significant discoveries – that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has lied, and either lied or betrayed his office again and again. As many have observed in comments everywhere, Gonzales seems to have continued to behave as though he were the president’s private counsel rather than the attorney general of the United States.
Gonzales has done worse, of course.
[JURIST] New US Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued during his first few weeks in the position that the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay should be shut down and detainees transferred to the US, according to a report in Friday's New York Times. Gates told other senior administration officials that Guantanamo was hindering US war efforts and that holding military trials of terror suspects at Guantanamo instead of in the US would undermine US credibility. Gates' arguments were reportedly supported by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but were rejected by US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Vice President Dick Cheney and ultimately by the president himself. A proposal to move terror detainees to military brigs in the US was rejected over concerns that shifting detainees and any military trials of terror suspects could bring increased constitutional and statutory rights for detainees....
In his press briefing Friday, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow acknowledged that Gates had concerns about Guantanamo, but said that he "deferred to the Attorney General on the legal issues" and that Gates' concerns did not reach Bush.
What does reach Bush? So far, we’re not sure, although if you keep ploughing through all the details on those dirty left-wing hippie blogs, you will sometimes get the feeling that there are some funny coincidences between Bush’s schedule and what at first seemed to be an eighteen-day gap in documentation from the DoJ, now being called a “lull” because a few emails turned up, and then a few more just yesterday:
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the latest e-mails could increase the pressure on Gonzales to resign. Sampson's scheduled testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday should shed more light on Gonzales' role."If the facts bear out that Attorney General Gonzales knew much more about the plan than he has previously admitted, then he can no longer serve as attorney general," said Schumer, who has already called on Gonzales to step down.
The latest documents also raise new questions about how involved White House political operatives were in the decision to fire the prosecutors.
In a Dec. 3, 2006, e-mail released Friday night, Scott Jennings, one of presidential adviser Karl Rove's aides, asked Sampson if he had a list of "all vacant, or about-to-be vacant, US Attorney slots." Jennings' request came on a Sunday, so Sampson offered to send it to him the next day.
Jennings, a political operative, had earlier passed along complaints from Republican Party activists about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who was fired from his job in New Mexico. Some Republicans were angry that Iglesias hadn't been more aggressive in investigating Democrats.
The e-mails also show that administration officials struggled to find a way to justify the firings and considered citing immigration enforcement simply because three of the fired prosecutors were stationed near the border with Mexico. While the e-mails don't provide evidence of partisan motives for the firings, they seem to undercut the administration's explanation that the prosecutors were dismissed for poor performance.
"The one common link here is that three of them are along the southern border so you could make the connection that DOJ is unhappy with the immigration prosecution numbers in those districts," Tasia Scolinos, a senior public affairs specialist at the Justice Department, told Catherine Martin, a White House communications adviser, in an e-mail.
"Which ones are they?" Martin replied.
Scolinos was clearly unprepared for the furor that resulted from the dismissals.
"I think most of them will resign quietly - they don't get anything out of making it public," she told Martin. "I don't see it as being a national story - especially if it phases in over a few months."
Karl Rove. I’m just not going there. Yet. But Cathie Martin I can do. Remember Cathie Martin? She used to work for Dick Cheney. Her testimony at the Libby trial mattered, painful though that must have been for her. During those days when she was sometimes sitting in on meetings with Cheney and Scooter, she seems to have been worried about violating the oath she took that gained her security clearance (and she gets points for that). Now she is doing general communications for the White House, and from a select list of U.S. federal prosecutors (all of whose states are named on the list), she isn’t sure which ones are along the southern border.
Nothing wrong with a little comic relief, is there, when you’re sifting through all that paperwork and cursing the deep truth that life is a filing cabinet (and you’ve lost the key). If only I’d watched George II more often on TV in the past, I’d have been able to tell whether this performance on Tuesday was truly bizarre or just standard practice. Petulant, many have said, and I would agree, except I saw spitting anger there as well. The man could hardly form his words as he sank beneath the occasion. I see now why he chokes on pretzels, but I keep remembering what he has the power to do whenever he throws a tantrum.
Jon Stewart knows where comedy comes from, though, and he managed to boil Bush’s press conference down to its rhetorical bones (aka the talking points). Sorry that I don’t know how to locate you more precisely than this, but once you get there, scroll down to “Reasonable Proposal,” and make sure to stay around for the follow-up, “Eight Men Out.” I put that forth as a rational proposal; I think it’s a reasonable proposal, and the proposal I put forth is the proposal. Y’hear?
Oh – the smoke! I forgot about the smoke. And before I write my next paragraph, I feel I should do full disclosure: I am, God help me, one of those abandoned critchurs who still puff away on the sometimes evil, sometimes sacred tobacco. But even through the haze and the coughing fits, I know crooks and liars when I see them.
One of the most astonishing revelations about the U.S. Department of Justice this past week came zinging in independently of the congressional investigation of the latest prosecutors’ purge:
The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said."The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."
When people like Sharon Eubanks start coming forward on their own, I’d say it’s time to call the fire department.
Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, ranked by the DoJ toadies and panders to the White House senior staff as “undistinguished,” said that he was just “an average guy having an average day,” and went off to sit in the public gallery at the Conrad Black trial, where he took careful notes.
[Note to self: Somewhere on my cybertravels today, I have read interesting documentation of some White House officials' naughty habit of communicating government business through unofficial channels (like the Republican National Committee). Besides being naughty, that is seriously against the law that requires all presidents and presidential minions to archive just about everything they say and do in an official capacity. Damned if I can remember now where I read that, but I'm sure that others are on the case. You didn't think that Karl Rove was a careful archiver anyway, did you? That may be how he outsmarted himself, though. There are some unhappy e-addresses on a few of the White House messages sent to the DoJ. Tsk, tsk.]
So, people may be aware that there’s a new, leftish president in Ecuador, Rafael Correa. He seems to intend to head along a quite Chavez-like or Morales-like path, with a combination of popular involvement and local control of resources. But that’s easier said than done, of course. The political institutions of Ecuador are apparently known for corruption and rigging, and Correa has no real political party of his own. His first order of business for substantive transformation was to call a constituent assembly to put together a new constitution, which would lay out the rules for, among other things, seriously reformed political institutions. But with Congress largely opposing him, and indeed likely to be turfed from office under such new rules, it seemed unlikely he could pull it off. I didn’t really think he’d manage it. Surprisingly, he has!
Correa upon his inauguration issued a decree calling for a plebiscite for the people to vote on April 15 for the election of a Constituent Assembly. The Congress refused to accept the president's initiative, passing its own law saying that such an assembly would not have the right to limit the tenure of Congressional members or any other elected officials until their terms expired with the next elections. It would not be an assembly with powers to refound the country's institutions. . . . Correa responded by taking the Congressional legislation, eliminating the onerous clauses, tailoring it to his original decree for a Constituent Assembly to refound the country, and sending it the country's Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which rules on elections and electoral procedures. Hopes were not high, as the Tribunal is historically viewed as part of the "partidocracia.'' The popular movements began to demonstrate in front of the Tribunal and Congress, calling for their closure, and for Correa to simply issue a decree for the Constituent Assembly. Rene Baez, a political analyst at the Catholic University of Ecuador, says: "To the surprise of virtually everyone the popular repudiation shook the consciousness of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal." Lead by its president, Jorge Acosta, a member of a traditional right wing party, the Tribunal declared that the statute proposed by President Correa to refound the country's institutions would be the one that would be voted up or down on April 15. Outraged by this decree, fifty-seven of the one hundred deputies of Congress voted to depose Acosta from the Tribunal. The next day Acosta and the Tribunal responded by expelling the fifty- seven deputies from Congress for their unconstitutional actions.
Turbulent goings on. But the people seem happy; there’s celebrations in the street and popular movements are planning how to make sure the constituent assembly is inclusive:
In "An Open Letter to the People," signed by many leaders of the country's popular organizations, they declared: "The Constituent Assembly should be an organizing process for the Ecuadorian people, including workshops, seminars, and discussions at the grassroots of society that spills over and includes the different social sectors, women, the indigenous peoples, the Afro-Ecuadorians, workers, professors, students, informal merchants "
So, for the moment all going rather unexpectedly well for Correa and the popular movements. Power to the people and all that, what?
If you've been dropping by here recently then you've already enjoyed Otis Spann on the piano, first as a sideman for Muddy Waters and then sitting in with Sonny Boy Williamson. Here he is on centre stage.
Spann's Blues
Blues Don't Like Nobody
It wasn't that long ago that I encouraged Canada's New Prime Minister™ to keep taking cheap shots in the House of Commons. Like this one:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper went for the jugular again in question period today, accusing Liberal MPs of being more supportive of Taliban prisoners than of Canadian soldiers.“I can understand the passion that the leader of the Opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners,” Harper said in the Commons. “I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers.”
There's quite a bit in the blogosphere this morning about yesterday's New Budget™. The closest anyone came to summing up my own reaction was two sentences at the end of this post by Paul Wells.
This budget is good politics and it will be welcomed by people who dislike Liberals because it will make it less likely that the Liberals get back into office. And if conservatism is only a dislike of Liberals, then there's no problem.
If you're looking for a good, meaty, fact-filled analysis you could do a lot worse than this from Relentlessly Progressive Economics. (Hat-tip to Robert at My Blahg.)
I don't have much to say about this. It's just that after all the carrier movement and the demonizing and the Democrats maneuvering over whether to do something ineffectual to rein Bush in, I'm wondering when that shoe's gonna drop. I was expecting something might have happened by now.
D'you suppose the world got lucky and the Bushniks decided against it?
Sonny Boy Williamson. Keep It To Yourself.
And again with Otis Spann on piano. Nine Below Zero.
I’m getting a bit of a jump on St Patrick’s Day because shortly I’m going to refer you to friend Melanie’s amazing Irish feast, which takes some forward planning of the shopping and the cooking and the preparing kinds.
But first: many people have recorded versions of this song, which is only right since it is one of those songs that belong to the people. This is how I like it sung best: “Carrickfergus,” Celtic melancholy perfect, from Tommy Makem:
“I’m drunk today, and I’m seldom so-oh-ber ...”
Sorry. I get carried away sometimes. I’m not Irish although I’m a cousin of a kind, and I understand why the Irish wince at some of what North Americans have perpetrated in the name of honouring their culture. Stage Irish, like stage Scots, got its start in London music halls over a century ago, but it took North Americans to think of things like ... green beer? “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”? Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”? (There is a YouTube. Be grateful I’m not inflicting it on you.)
I also doubt that all their wars have felt very merry to the Irish, although they did perforce become good at fighting back against the dreaded Sassenachs (that’s Scots for the English). Chesterton’s famous verse about the great Gaels of Ireland rings truest in its last line. Their loveliest music has been ineffably sad, essence of longing for a place called home, the result no doubt of being driven so often from their homes by military or economic pressure -- and then as well of being driven from a home so beautiful.
Och, but I am sounding Celtic melancholic, amn't I. Food! Food will cheer us up. Like all country people, the Irish do food well because they still remember how to do it locally.
And here I defer to Melanie, who pulled this feast together a week ago. She started with the soda bread, which you’ll want for snacking through the afternoon as you cook or later at supper, to go along with your cabbage soup (topped with Blarney Castle cheese, no less) or to sop up the Guinness-spiked gravy of your beef stew. Me, I love especially the Colcannon, which is a Scots favourite too. If you’ve never mushed your cabbage and your bacon (or just your meaty leftovers with gravy) into your mashed potatoes, you’ve got a child’s delight waiting for you in that recipe.
The rhubarb cobbler was news to me (and it turns out that that is a Minnesota variant – rhubarb is already up in Minnesota?), but that recipe should work with apples or plums or pears for those of us in the still-thawing Great White North.
I was very tempted – so tempted, you just can’t know – to close off this post with yet another heroic photo of our current St Patrick, he of the Brooklyn accent and the stern work-ethic, no stage Irish there, so intimidating in some ways and yet so reassuring in others ... Och, here's tae all the handsome rovers I have known.
*skdadl slaps self back to rationality*
Iinstead I’ll leave you with a different song, the theme from the riveting Yorkshire Television series Harry’s Game, which is one of the saddest, hardest, truest stories I know.
Clannad, with the theme from Harry’s Game:
Many of us are overjoyed to hear that our fellow citizen Kevin, his father Majid, and his mother Masomeh are soon to be freed from the Texas detention centre they were abducted to when their flight to Canada was forced down on American territory seven weeks ago. (The CTV report supplies the family’s surnames, which may not be wise.)
Many of us have also been inspired by the splendid tenacity of Annamarie at verbena-19, who has tracked this story from early February, kept in touch with the family, and organized letter-writing campaigns to the Canadian ministers responsible for the well-being of all Canadian citizens abroad. Praises are due also to liberal catnip, who worked with Annamarie from the beginning, and to GodammitKitty at Hope and Onions, who kept the blogburst rolling with her rolling accounting of the bursting blogs.
Catnip is probably right when she says that publication of this letter from Kevin to Stephen Harper in the Globe and Mail was decisive in convincing Canadian authorities to act in this case. But both Annamarie and catnip had been publishing the story earlier, and I think we can guess that they gave it the boost it needed to go mainstream.
So something very good has happened. And now, for the downside, aka the long term. (What? You expect me to be cheerful for long?)
Kevin and his family are refugees from a tyrannical regime. Both the U.S. government and Amnesty International have affirmed in reports to the Canadian government that Majid’s claims of torture and persecution in Iran are credible. Canada is, after all, the homeland of Zahra Kazemi, and the U.S. is, after all, the homeland of an administration that seems determined to demonize Iran, so even on the political surfaces of things, it must have seemed obvious to our two fumbling stumbling governments that it would be better to bury the contradictions of this case as quickly and quietly as possible.
But contradictions there are. Diane Finley’s spokesminion tries hard to maintain that Kevin’s case is exceptional (from the CTV link):
"The minister's decision was made in the best interests of the child,'' said Mike Fraser, a spokesperson for Immigration and Citizenship Minister Diane Finley. "This is a unique situation.''Citing privacy concerns, Fraser said he couldn't comment on how soon the family may leave the T. Don Hutto facility outside Austin, Tex., or how long the family will be able to stay in Canada.
"All I can say is that we're in negotiations with U.S. authorities,'' he said.
The Texas facility -- formerly a maximum-security prison -- is the target of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is demanding U.S. officials release the family from the "inhumane conditions" and that the government be prohibited from separating Kevin from his parents.
But we all know by now that what is most exceptional about Kevin’s case is that it finally drew international attention to the horrific practices of U.S. immigration authorities, who have incarcerated many other families at the privately run Hutto centre. Kevin’s case has also reminded us of what may happen to anyone who is not an American citizen flying through American airspace, given the near-total collapse of respect for international law under the Bush administration.
And Kevin’s case reminds us as well of the infamous “Safe Third Country” agreement between Canada and the U.S., in effect since 29 December 2004. “Safe” – such a pretty word, isn’t it? So reassuring ... unless you happen to be one of those people desperately in need of safety.
Others will know better the history of that agreement, but as I recall, one of its main purposes was to stem the flow of refugees from Central and South America who had been promised safe haven in Canada – if only they could make it here through the hostile territory intervening. The very title of the agreement mocks the activist and church groups that have worked for decades to keep alive the tradition of a freedom trail leading to Canada.
How can it be, in a time of increasing globalization of capital, that the migrations of people, of human beings driven by human concerns, should be shut down by the very masters of the universe who themselves expect to travel about the globe unimpeded by affiliation to any interest but power and money? How dare refugee boards and right-wing pundits warn us that many refugee claimants may be only “economic migrants” when their own political masters are pretty much the same?
Under pressure, pressure of many different kinds, human beings will move. If history since pre-history has taught us anything, it should have taught us that. Kevin and his family come from a region that has been under unbearable pressure, from many different directions, for too many years. We are complicit in that pressure; we have a responsibility to relieve it; and in the meantime, we have more than a responsibility to Kevin and his family.
We have a glorious tradition to uphold – ok, to restore, to repair. The freedom trail ends here. Welcome to Canada.
I for one am not going to fuss about Halliburton moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai on the sunny coast of the Persian Gulf. It makes sense, and it makes things so much clearer, too.. . .
Remember the big brouhaha that arose when a Dubai-based company was in line to take over the operation of several major U.S. ports last year? Members of Congress were in high dudgeon over that and in the end the plan was abandoned.
So how do we feel knowing that virtually the entire supply line for our over-extended troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is now in the hands of a Dubai corporation, and that it has its hooks into the central policy arm of our government, Blair House and the Office of the Vice President?
Next time Halliburton's KBR subsidiary serves our troops toxic, bacteria-ridden food, or puts untreated Euphrates River water into their canteens, maybe we should look harder to see if this was just another case of corporate corner and cost-cutting, or whether something more sinister was at work.
I'm interested in environmental issues, interested in class issues, and interested in South America, so this article caught my eye rather. It's also nice to see something a little off the current beaten path for progressive writing--Bush and the Bushniks, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Kyoto, you know.
When I first saw talk about ethanol and for that matter biodiesel I thought, what a cool idea! Fuel made from a renewable source, grown on farms! Presumably, all the CO2 you produced by burning them would be sucked back out of the air next year when you grew the new crop. Great! But the more I've seen, the less I like them.
The fossil fuels needed to grow the stuff seems to equal what you get out of them, they take up land that would be used for growing food, increasing pressure to use more and more land for crops, and they seem to be largely pushed by big agribusiness. They seem increasingly like a scam and a trap, and apparently not just in the US where they're pushed by the corn lobby.
Brazil's Ethanol Plan: Breeding Rural Poverty and Environmental Degradation
On Jan. 22 the Lula administration announced it will increase federal funding for Brazil's sugar-based ethanol industry by almost US$6 billion over the next four years. . . . Brazilian ethanol is produced from sugarcane, which has always been a primary agricultural commodity for the country. Because ethanol relies on sugarcane as its primary material, the industry is linked to the social and economic dynamics in rural areas that have developed from sugarcane production since the colonial era, most importantly labor exploitation and land concentration. . . . "The problems with [sugarcane's] production today are very similar to the problems it generated hundreds of years ago," says Maisa Mendonça, Director of the São Paulo-based NGO Rede Social. . . . Today Brazil has 72,000 sugar producers, and the ten largest producers still control less than 30% of production. However, the banker says, "The current trend is toward concentration, with a large number of mergers and acquisitions." Many of the larger companies that are buying out the smaller companies are multinational agribusiness corporations. . . . Sugarcane seems to be following the same pattern of foreign investment and concentration as that of soybeans. Today almost all soybean production in Brazil is controlled by a handful of multinational agribusinesses. Many of the corporations that control soybeans are now investing in the ethanol industry. . . . As more land is planted as a monoculture of sugarcane, and control of the industry becomes more concentrated, rural poverty increases. . . . But contrary to the "green" image evoked by industry advocates, the monoculture of sugarcane leads to massive environmental destruction. According to Melo, in Pernambuco only 2.5% of the original forest of the sugarcane region remains. In order to satisfy future global demand, Brazil will need to clear an additional 148 million acres of forest, says Eric Holt-Gimenez of the NGO FoodFirst, based in Oakland, CA.
It's hard to select out little pieces of this article--I'm still leaving out issues of food sovereignty, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), Lula once again disappointing the left (as in, his party's base) by pushing ethanol exports at the expense of peasants, and much more. As usual, so many issues are interconnected. And yet, the complexity is partly illusion--what it seems to boil down to is that as usual, a push from above to shape development for elite profits screws up everything else, from the people to the land.
I probably should have been up front about that when I first started blogging last year. I mean, I guess I knew back then that some people think real names are an issue, but I don’t think they’re an issue, and besides I’m the shy and retiring sort, so I didn’t think it would matter.
Some hack writing in one of our tackier national organs thinks that it matters, though, so I guess I’d better come clean. Confession is good for the soul and all that. (I don’t actually believe in confessing much, and I sure don’t believe in self-advertisement, aka showing off, but the cliché seemed handy.) So I confess: skdadl is not my real name, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I did tell pogge, and he didn’t seem to mind. But to anyone who now feels betrayed or misled, my heartfelt apologies and sincerest offer to make amends. I’m sorry, and now you know.
There now. Don’t we all feel better?
Oh, and swiftboating – did I mention swiftboating? “Viral marketing,” as friend kuri (which may not be her real name either) calls it. I don’t much believe in living down to behaviour that vile, although when I see good people being backed into corners unfairly, I start to take notes. Now, the hive mind (of the good kind) – I might believe in that. That sounds more like democracy to me. And I think I just might know a hive or two.
How about a pair from Muddy Waters?
Got My Mojo Workin'
And Hoochie Coochie Man
Jury selection in the trial of Conrad Black began in Chicago on Monday:
Lord Black and three other former executives of Hollinger International Inc. face a variety of criminal charges over allegations they took more than $80-million (U.S.) from the Chicago-based newspaper company. They have pleaded not guilty and none of the allegations has been proven.The trial is expected to last three months, involving dozens of witnesses and three million pages of documents.
Some of the reporters expected to cover the trial are celebrities in their own right, such as Dominick Dunne, who covers the rich and famous for Vanity Fair magazine and who is already chronicling the Black case for the monthly periodical.
A couple of Lord Black's biographers will also attend, including British author Tom Bower, whose recent book -- Conrad & Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge -- has provoked a libel suit from Lord Black, who alleges the text portrays him as "evil and devoid of any redeeming or even mitigating qualities."
And do read on: the Globe and Mail seems to be doing gossip so well these days.
“A variety of criminal charges”? It would fry some reporter’s computer to lay a few of those out for us in detail?
It pains me ever to pay a compliment to the National Post, but their reporter did lead by dropping a name that actually matters to this case: Patrick Fitzgerald:
The key to the Washington jury verdict for Mr. Fitzgerald, who personally prosecuted Mr. Libby, is the so-called "Kiss" principle -- Keep It Simple, Stupid."The basic rule for a white-collar prosecutor is not to get too complicated," explained Professor John Coffee at Columbia University Law School in New York.
"You really can't teach the average juror, who may not have finished high school, the equivalent of a graduate degree in accounting, during the course of a trial."
Although Mr. Fitzgerald will be on the sidelines supervising the case against Lord Black, expect his team of four assistant attorneys to play by the same principles. "The U.S. government has to simplify its case and focus on key events that can be explained simply," he said.
And the Post’s Theresa Tedesco does a much better job of laying out the charges and the competing strategies of prosecution and defence to watch for:
The 62-year-old Montreal-born media mogul is charged with eight counts of criminal fraud, obstruction of justice and racketeering in connection to US$83- million prosecutors alleged was siphoned from Hollinger International by Lord Black and some of his former business associates. It's alleged the bonuses were disguised as non-compete payments."The number one thing you do is try to convince the jury that there were under-the-table payments made for these noncompete agreements," Prof. Coffee explained.
He said the prosecutions argument will look something like this: "These agreements are all a sham. In theory, a non-compete agreement is something the buyer [should] want and the buyer [in this case] appears not to have demanded. It looks as if they were something Conrad Black insisted on. If Conrad Black wants it, and the buyer does not, it doesn't look as if it is performing a serious function -- and is, instead, something that has been used to rationalize the diversion of money to himself that would otherwise have gone to the shareholders."
Conversely, Lord Black's lawyers will need to do the opposite.
"The defendants in white-collar cases often want to confuse the jury so they don't really know what's going on," Prof. Coffee said.
Lord Black's lead defence attorneys Edward Greenspan and Edward Genson will want to offer up a clear, sensible explanation for the non-compete payments -- and avoid using technical commercial jargon that could make the jury's eyes glaze over.
"They are going to want to convince the jury that the government doesn't understand the business world and that they are simply subjecting an honest businessman to a threat of years in prison because of a series of transactions that are more complicated than the government understands," Prof. Coffee said.
Tedesco goes on to an interesting discussion of the contrasts between Canadian and American rules of evidence, which will not be working in Conrad Black’s favour, and reminds us of the prosecution’s most telling witness against Black, David Radler, Black's friend and business associate for over thirty years:
The 65-year-old former publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times pleaded guilty to one count of fraud and a US$250,000 fine in August, 2005 in exchange for a 29- month prison term and a promise to cooperate with the U.S. government.It is widely accepted that Mr. Radler provided prosecutors with the ammunition they needed to indict Lord Black in November, 2005.
Legal experts on both sides of the border expect Mr. Radler will be the star witness for the prosecution -- and will likely appear at the end of the trial, which is expected to run for at least 10 weeks.
"Ultimately, Mr. Radler is going to be the critical witness but I'm not sure I'd put him on the stand first," Prof. Coffee said. "You want the jury to understand basic facts before they get into this confrontation about whether he's knifing his friend in the back to get a lesser sentence."
Mr. Gold agreed, saying it would be better for prosecutors to lay "a foundation" around him first using experts to deal with the details that are not contested and then bring in his testimony to add greater significance and help build a stronger case.
"Unless they are absolutely certain that no marks can be made against him, you don't want the jury to listen to the rest of the case being skeptical of him," he explained.
To be fair to the Globe and Mail, Jacquie McNish and Paul Waldie do have for us today an interesting account of the cross-border legal disputes that are likely to follow upon Lord Black’s remarkable moonlight flit with thirteen boxes of evidence two years ago:
The charge is obstruction of justice, one of several alleged crimes including racketeering and fraud that the U.S. Justice Department has accused the former Hollinger International chief of committing. Lord Black has pleaded not guilty to the charges.The boxes are the infamous cardboard cartons immortalized in May, 2005, when security cameras filmed them in the arms of Lord Black as he hoisted them out the back door of his Toronto office and into a waiting car. Shortly after the carton caper, Mr. Justice Colin Campbell of the Ontario Superior Court ordered the former press baron to return the boxes because of a court order prohibiting the removal of material from his office.
Lord Black returned the cartons days later, but the war of the boxes had only just begun. Behind the scenes, there was a furious clash between U.S. prosecutors and the Ontario court over whether boxes shelved in a Canadian court can be used as evidence in the Chicago trial.
“The charge is obstruction of justice.” Oh, gosh: to anyone who has been following the progress of Patrick Fitzgerald through the trial of Scooter Libby, are those words not music to the ears?
No, I don’t have a problem and I don’t need an intervention. I can quit any time. I can. Any time. Maybe this summer.
The verdict in the trial of Scooter Libby will be read at noon EST. You can follow the liveblogging, as always, at firedoglake.com.
Update: For the time being, I'll just keep adding links to good analyses and reflections in comments below.
Once heard or read, never forgotten. That voice -- measured, steady, powerfully persistent, kindly and yet devastatingly frank -- was unlike anything most young women had ever heard in Canada in the 1950s or 1960s.
If ever any editor or publisher in this country earned the epithet "legendary," it was Doris Anderson, who died yesterday in Toronto at the age of eighty-five. Among the (still too few) women who have broken through glass ceilings to become power-brokers on their own, Anderson was unique. She was obviously propelled by an unshakeable faith in the dignity and competence of women, grounded in her own sense of self-esteem, but she ran as well on just the right level of piss and vinegar to wake up some of the boys in the backrooms and to give heart to a lot of women who hadn't yet found the kind of courage she had.
Sandra Martin's fine obit in yesterday's Globe and Mail tells such a story. Many people will remember Anderson best as the editor who turned a women's magazine into a journalistic powerhouse in the fifties, sixties, and seventies:
As editor of Chatelaine, Ms. Anderson wanted to give readers what they expected in the way of recipes, beauty and parenting tips, but she also wanted to give them “something serious to think about” and to “shake them up a bit” with well-written, hard-hitting investigative pieces on abortion, birth control, discriminatory divorce laws and the wage gap.And she hired excellent journalists to write them, including June Callwood, Christina McCall (later Newman) Michele Landsberg, Barbara Frum and Sylvia Fraser. “I had fabulous women,” she said later, explaining that many of them came to her because they couldn't find places to write elsewhere.
One of her first editorials was an appeal for more women in Parliament -- there were only two female MPs in 1958 --another early one was for reform of the draconian abortion laws. She quickly learned that effecting social change meant frequently revisiting issues in editorials and articles and so she devoted lots of space over the years to push for a Royal Commission on the status of women, and to expose horrors such as child battering, racism and the plight of Canada's Native peoples. Some readers felt that she was turning "a nice wholesome Canadian magazine into a feminist rag." However, circulation, which was 480,000 when she became editor, had increased by the late 1960s to 1.8 million readers, the equivalent of one out of every three women in Canada.
[My emphasis. Gee: how the world hasn't changed.]
Anderson walked away from the flaccid boy-publishers, though, when she realized that they were never going to give her an even break, no matter how successful she was. She charged into politics, and then she charged into making our Charter a serious declaration of human rights and freedoms.
Reading over some of that history as Martin has summarized it, I can still feel the old anger rising. Younger people should know how recently even Liberal politicians we have come to think of fondly as, well, liberal, were pulling stunts like this on feminists:
Ms. Anderson saw the constitutional talks as an opportunity to lobby for strong wording on women's equality. Under her leadership the advisory council planned a conference, but it was delayed because of a translator's strike.Meanwhile the Charter was drafted and an equality clause was formulated which prohibited discrimination on a number of grounds including sex, but it didn't go far enough in Ms. Anderson's opinion because it “was exactly the same wording as in the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights,” which she argued had “been tested ten times in the courts between 1870 and 1980, and had been found to be useless as a legal tool to help women.”
She criticized the wording publicly and sent a detailed critique to Lloyd Axworthy, then minister responsible for the status of women. She also hired feminist lawyer Mary Eberts, a constitutional expert, to write a brief which was presented to a Parliamentary committee hearing.
But Ms. Anderson's conference on women's equality and the constitution was cancelled in a move that appeared to many to have been orchestrated by Mr. Axworthy in tandem with members of her own board. Ms. Anderson resigned in protest, in what was played as a story about women fighting not only each other, but the minister in charge of the Status of Women. “Every time Lloyd Axworthy opens his mouth, one hundred more women become feminists,” said Ms. Anderson in a comment that was widely quoted.
“She was relatively easy going and ready to compromise,” said her friend, journalist Rosemary Spiers about the furor at the Status of Women, “but when things really get up against the wall, then she won't and she is very tough.”
Flora MacDonald agreed. “When Pauline Jewett and I were in the House, she in the NDP and me for the Progressive Conservatives, we were questioning Mr. Axworthy in the house every day about why was this conference going to be postponed and so on,” Flora MacDonald said recently. “I don't think he has ever forgiven me.”
A small group of self-organizing feminists decided to hold a conference anyway. Helped by Ms. MacDonald, who booked a meeting room on Parliament Hill, more than 1,300 women from across the country arrived in Ottawa on Feb. 14, 1981 to hold what became known as the “Ad Hoc Conference.” Eventually a new clause was added to the Charter, Section 28, which states: “Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.”
The fallout was bitter. Mr. Axworthy appointed Lucie Pepin, one of the women on the CACSW board who had voted against holding the conference, as Ms. Anderson's successor.
Anderson became an activist for proportional representation, a cause she was still speaking to in the last months of her life, because she recognized that there are some power structures some of us are never going to break through unless we address the structures.
When I read over the frank talk that Martin has quoted and when I remember the voice I heard several times years ago, I could weep to think that a woman who talks as tough as Doris Anderson did for eighty-five years would still shock a lot of Canadians. She spoke the truth as she saw it and she worked hard to promote any other woman who would do that. Many of the women she supported went on to marvellous careers in their own right.
And yet we have the backlash. Doris Anderson still sounds shocking to many people, fifty years later, because she would not curb her tongue. Some of us lapsed into believing that we had won the fights for equality. It has been shocking for some of us to learn just how far we've regressed.
What can I say? In memory of Doris and in tribute to her: Girls! Sharpen your tongues! Give 'em hell! And don't quit.
We're unplugged this evening.
Corey Harris. Honeysuckle.
And Corey Harris with Keb' Mo'. Sweet Home Chicago.
It’s interesting in general how greatly IMF influence has waned over the last few years. I don’t really understand it, although there are a few pointers. The news seems to have generally gotten around after the Asian meltdown and events like the Argentina troubles that IMF funding is a cure worse than the disease—not only for the countries involved, but often for the politicians leading those countries. And I’ve gotten the impression that there’s an awful lot of investment money splashing around these days, so countries haven’t had to go to the “lender of last resort” because there are plenty of other lenders.
But it seems that nowhere has the IMF’s influence disappeared so entirely as in Latin America, in good part because Hugo Chavez has been using oil money to buy bonds and otherwise lend (at much lower interest rates than the IMF from what I’ve heard) to countries in the region, allowing them to pay off IMF debt, substituting lower-interest debt to Venezuela. The effect has been dramatic, according to this article:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is squeezing the International Monetary Fund out of Latin America, the region that once accounted for most of its business. IMF lending in the area has fallen to $50 million, or less than 1 percent of its global portfolio, compared with 80 percent in 2005. Meanwhile, Chavez has used his oil wealth to lend $2.5 billion to Argentina, offer $1.5 billion to Bolivia and hold $500 million out to Ecuador.
It took me a moment to process that—down to 1% of IMF lending from 80%, I got that immediately. But I didn’t at first register that this wipeout happened in one year! It seems as if Chavez, with his ambitious regional economic plans, concluded that the IMF would be a major force blocking those plans, and simply took them out. Say what you want about the man, he has a strong sense of strategy.
A US spokesperson objected,
“Chavez is at grave risk of running out of money,” said Truman, who is now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
The article notes that Chavez is running a deficit. But Venezuela’s debt is around 25-30% of GDP (which is to say, much lower than ours or the US’). And these actions aren’t simply giving away money, either; while generally lower-interest than IMF loans (which are often very high-interest indeed) they are still loans or bond purchases—that is to say, money making investments. In any case, to some extent it doesn’t matter if he can’t keep it up—the IMF doesn’t have any more lending to replace. That job is done; arguably, rather than the IMF having political influence on the region as a lender, it is now Venezuela which inherits that influence (although hopefully it will be wielded in less coercive ways). Mind you, one thing that should be kept in mind is that all this doesn’t mention the World Bank, which I believe actually lends much more money than the IMF, although its reputation is not quite as coercive.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s economy continues to hum along. Economic growth was at 10% last year even though the oil sector actually declined slightly, and unemployment went down, while employment shifted slightly from the informal towards the formal sector.